Free Whistler's Angel by John R. Maxim

told her the truth, bare bones though it was. It was certainly true that Alicia was clean. She did like to party and she was a flirt. She drank, but she never touched drugs. The party she went to in the Hollywood Hills was hosted by two brothers, two rich kids. They gave her a spiked Margarita.
    The spike was GHB, a synthetic depressant, the first of the so-called date-rape drugs. The street dealers called it by a number of names, the most popular of which was “Easy Lay.” It was odorless, colorless, but it had a salty taste. That was why the drinks of choice were Margaritas. Mixed with alcohol, a few grams would put the victim to sleep. Two drinks would pretty much guarantee loss of memory, and the sleep would deepen into coma. The brothers who were spiking her drinks gave her three. Then they carried her upstairs and they raped her.
    It got worse.
    The two brothers had also been doing cocaine. They ran out of it, wanted more, and called their dealer. The dealer lived in a house down off Sunset. He drove over and he brought his partner. This was late at night; all the other guests had gone, except Alicia who was in an upstairs bedroom. The first two offered to share her. They took turns. She wouldn’t have known what was happening.
    At some point, one of the two brothers realized that Alicia was barely breathing. Her heart would race, and then almost stop. Her skin had become cold and clammy. The brothers decided that they’d better get rid of her, maybe dump her in front of a hospital. They asked the two dealers to do it. The two dealers, however, had no such intention. They took her instead to the UCLA campus. There, they found a fraternity house that was having a party of its own. It was raining at the time. Everyone was inside. They left her barely alive, if not dead, on the lawn of that fraternity house. That was where she was found the next morning.
    Whistler got the news from his father. A police lieutenant had called him. His father would be flying to Los Angeles from Geneva, but would not arrive until the next morning. Whistler didn’t wait. He flew out at once. It was Whistler who identified her body.
    An autopsy hadn’t yet been performed but they’d done a preliminary blood test. They knew that the GHB had killed her. The police had also traced her movements that night. They knew the two brothers. Both had arrest records. Aside from arrests for simple drug possession, they’d been accused of using GHB before on at least one other occasion. But they were the sons of some studio executive who had always bought their way out of trouble. The brothers, shown a photograph, said she did seem familiar. They acknowledged that she might have been at their party, but if so, she’d left it well before midnight. The police were unable to make an arrest without an admission from someone involved. With DNA testing not yet in existance, the rape charge couldn’t be proved.
    Whistler, once again, didn’t wait for his father. The police wouldn’t give him the two brothers’ names, but he took a taxi to the freshman dorms where he got them from Alicia’s weeping roommate. He went to see the brothers; he pushed his way in. The brothers were defiant. They told him to fuck off. He used his fists and a chair to beat them both half to death. He needed the chair because he’d broken several knuckles. A neighbor heard all the banging and screaming and telephoned the police. Whistler was arrested for assault at the scene. He spent half the night in an emergency ward and the next half locked in a cell. His father came to see him the next afternoon.
    His father, by then, had also seen Alicia. He came to the holding cell, his eyes cold and distant. His eyes eventually fell on Whistler’s hands. One was bandaged; one was in a plaster cast.
    Quietly, he said, “Adam, never use your fists. Heads, as you now realize, are harder than fists. But many things are harder than heads.”
    Whistler glared. “Alicia’s